Chapter 1

2000 A.E (After Exodus)

Keena

Keena rested her head back on one folded arm. The rock and creak of the wagon as the horses pulled it over the uneven ground lulled her into a state of sleepiness, but the occasional jerk of a rock or divot kept her from falling into the full oblivion of her fatigue. The sky was growing dark as day bled into night, turning from crisp blue to a blooming of reds and purples and oranges. The colors reminded Keena of the wildflowers that would be blooming soon in the meadow by her village. Her heart contracted with the homesickness and anticipation brought by their snail-paced arrival back to Mina.

For most of the year, all the younglings in her community would make a pilgrimage to Themiskyra, a village on the island of Dia, in the realm of Olympia, to train with the Amazonian warriors to become soldiers. The Amazon society was matriarchal, and their everyday routine consisted of women warriors training other women to join their ranks. Though their numbers were plenty, very few men were ever allowed to stand beside them. However, due to the urgent need in Daearen to have strong and able-bodied fighters to join the resistance, the Amazonian leaders had agreed to make an exception. This meant that they also trained the boys of Mina from a young age. As such, the caravan, slowly bringing the younglings back home to Mina, was made up of all genders.

It was at the end of winter and the fields were thawing in Abya Yula—the northwestern continent of Daearen—which meant the younglings were traveling back for the growing season. They would help their parents plant and care for the next year’s crop and reap the harvest before the next frost. When the air grew cold again, they would make the pilgrimage to the gate and return to Themiskyra.

This was Keena’s sixth return since she turned twelve. 

Keena closed her eyes to the colors of the sky above, deciding she would rather keep them shut than look at the surrounding landscape. Once they drew nearer to Mina, its protective spells meant the trees stood lush, and the grass remained green, but where the caravan was currently traveling, everything was gray, the bark sluffing off its branches like the skin of a corpse. 

She fisted her hands, the ache of her body just another reminder of the weaning of awen. It was getting worse, and it was happening faster for each season that passed. When Keena was little, her world hadn’t looked like this. Her world had been a vibrant, inviting, joyous place.

Now, her world was dying. 

The awen was bleeding out and without access to magic, the still free peoples of Daearen were bleeding out with it.

Not that long ago there had been innumerable gates between realms and the peoples had been free to move between them, but ever since Morrigan began her war on Daearen, Zeus and the gods of other realms had stopped all easy journeying to and from Daearen. Now there were veils of magic hindering any unwarranted visits and alerting the ancient guardians of any intrusions. It protected the river source of magic, keeping the other realms from being drained of awen in the way Daearen was. This meant that in the realm of Olympia, and on the island of Dia, the awen flowed like water from a roaring river. It was partly why training with the Amazonians was so effective. The younglings all got to explore the full extent of their magical abilities, unencumbered by the shadow cast by the Dark Queen. 

Where the awen tapped into the river source without impediment in Themiskyra, here the sickness of the land grabbed at her magic, like desert sand grabbing drops of water, leaving her off-kilter and sick to her stomach. 

At least she was safe with those who loved her. 

Keena closed her eyes, fisting her hands with the pain of everything that weighed on her mind, her heart. She hated leaving her village, hated leaving her parents and the people of Mina. But it was the duty of every child born to their community, which had been cobbled together from the scattered peoples of Daearen over the two decades that the war had spilled into the continent of Abya Yula. It was the honored obligation of every youngling to go to Themiskyra and train in order to help save their people. Anything else was unthinkable.

The thought made her body feel heavy, like lead poured into her veins. Keena didn’t want to be a warrior. She wanted to be a healer. She wanted to stay in this world with the plants and the herbs and the dirt and ensure that life grew wild once more. 

As a lock of black hair fell into her face, she blew out a stream of air to move the unruly strand. She crinkled her nose as the bothersome thing shifted, but came back to tickle her nose. Impatiently, she ran a hand through the disheveled mass of raven hair to push it out of her face. She suppressed a curse as the hair seethed and clung to her hand disobediently.

“Defiant bloody bastard,” she muttered, pushing it out of her face again.

Ren, one of Keena’s best friends, leaned forward, arching a silvery lavender eyebrow at Keena. “Are you talking to your hair again?”

Ren’s face was angled and foxish, the shape of it making the almond slanting of her eyes stand out. She watched Keena with amusement, lighting up her lavender irises from within. She shifted, making the fine curtain of silvery lavender hair fall over one shoulder like water. Keena eyed the sleek strands with naked jealousy.

A male voice spoke, deep and familiar, as it said, “I wouldn’t give her too much guff. I’m convinced that curly black shit is alive.” 

Keena’s hand motioned to Adriel, the other third of their group of friends, her eyebrows raised at Ren as if to say, see? Turning her focus on Adriel, she tried not to notice how his arctic blue eyes glittered, or how suppressed laughter made the corners of his lips tip up. He’d braided his long black hair back away from his face, but baby hairs escaped to frame his handsome features, the movement of the wagon making them caress his sun-tanned, russet skin.

Keena’s eyes widened when he reached out to capture a curl rising toward him. Taken off guard, her surprise sent a jolt of light energy down the strand, snapping against his fingers with a shock of lightning. Adriel flinched and pulled his hand back.

Keena gave a sheepish smile. “Careful—it bites.”

He sucked on his finger, his expression flat and brooding. “No shit.”

Ren snickered, scooting closer to Keena and sitting back against the wagon next to her. “So, who is looking forward to Enid’s fried sweet cakes?”

All three’s expressions changed into a mix of longing and unbridled hunger as they imagined the sweet cakes fried in oil and then drizzled with honey. Keena’s taste buds contracted painfully at the thought. 

Keena leaned her head back. “I’m excited to just have time to sleep in for once.”

Adriel let out a soft snort. “You said the same thing last year and then complained the rest of the season you couldn’t sleep past sunrise.”

“Yeah, and the first time she could was the day before—” 

Ren cut herself off suddenly. Keena looked up at her but realized she would have to sit in order to follow her friend’s gaze. She did, reluctantly, forgetting the dying landscape as her eyes landed on Bly, Adriel’s older brother, headed toward them on horseback. Kenna’s brows furrowed, and she glanced at Ren, trying to keep the ominous feeling from spreading through her limbs.

Please, not me, not me, not me. Her mind screamed in panic. 

Bly’s sandy blonde hair caught the sunlight and shimmered softly, the breeze shifting the unruly shoulder-length locks over his face. He looked stricken, his deep brown skin ashen, his golden brown eyes locked on Ren.

Keena’s breath lodged in her throat. The expression on Bly’s face wasn’t new. Keena had seen it many times before. The hesitant glance that didn’t quite make eye contact, the soft furrow between the brows, the bitter pull of a mouth that had words to speak but would rather not utter. But never had this expression been directed at her or her friends before. 

Not me, not me, not me. 

Maeve, Ren’s aunt, who had been resting toward the back of the wagon, must have sensed something as well as she sat upright.

Bly drew his horse alongside their wagon, his features pulled taut as he looked at Ren, and then at her aunt. He opened his mouth, but nothing came. Bly looked to Keena and Adriel for help. Keena slipped an arm around Ren, feeling the fine tremor of her body and the chorded stiffness of the Kitsune’s muscles.

“Ren…” Bly said.

“What happened?” Maeve asked. Her voice was sharp, like the crack of a whip. The sound of it made Bly’s jaw tighten, his teeth clenching.

Then he said, “They… They were caught in the raid.” 

The words were slow, like he had to slog through the mud to get them out.

“They were captured?” Maeve asked, tinges of hope they might be alive coloring her words.

Bly’s lips pulled tight, and Keena could see the slight tremor he was trying to hide. How the muscle in his chin quivered before he shook his head. 

Silence.

A sinking sensation, like lead in every vein. Keena knew they were all experiencing it. The shock of it. Relief and guilt swirled around Keena, making her lightheaded. 

Her eyes snapped to Ren as the Kitsune went loose in her arms. No sound escaped her, but she sagged against Keena and from one breath to the next, she transformed from human into her fox form. Small and silver, the Kitsune slipped through Keena’s arms and slunk to the back of the wagon, where she crawled under a low bench placed there. Keena watched as Ren pulled in around herself until she became a tiny silver ball of fur.  

Keena hesitated for a moment.

She could use her sight to reach her friend. If she could get eye contact and maintain it, then she could bridge the gap between them and enter her mind. She could stir up happier memories, push some of the shock away, and possibly help Ren deal with the pain she must be experiencing. Keena was experiencing a morsel of the loss and it was enough to make her wish she could fold in on herself the way Ren was. 

But Ren was entitled to privacy in her grief.

And so, Keena left it.

All she and Adriel could do for their friend was move over to the spot she had hidden and gently pet her back in slow soft circles. She accepted their touch, which at least was a good sign. 

For the rest of the ride back to Mina, the caravan kept a respectful silence, leaving room for Maeve’s soft sobs to be the only noise heard. As they approached their community, the grass, even in the darkness, showed signs of life, shifting from a dull, mute black to a muted dark green. Waving and winking in the low breeze. The trees bore birdsong, while the croak of frogs from the nearby stream and the chirp of crickets broke up the silence.

 The fist that had been pressing into Keena’s stomach since they left the gate behind eased a little as here the protective spells around Mina meant the awen was more readily available and it flowed more freely into her body again. 

Their wagon teetered precariously into potholes as the horses pulling it slowed. Keena looked to the front of the caravan, where the horses had already stopped completely. They were in front of the wall of Mina. Only all that lay before them was a meadow, stretching into a field. Tall grass and flowers were blowing softly in the breeze. 

It was one of Keena’s favorite moments: waiting for the reveal.

Then the air rippled softly, and she smiled at the sight. There was a shimmer like a mirage. The muted sound of horns blowing in a jovial chorus sounded in the otherwise silent night. Glittering golden light shifted like a curtain being pulled back, revealing a sliver of what was behind.

The Obscurion Caelum stood atop the gate, backs erect and eyes alert. They were fairies that could use their gift with the air to create barriers in order to obscure complete cities from sight. They had been key to the founding of Mina as they provided the means for the community to be kept out of sight and earshot of anyone who might try to seek those hiding from Morrigan and her forces.

The main entrance was manned by no less than two Obscurion and one witch at all times. This was the combination that made for the defenses that had kept their sanctuary safe over the last twenty years.

Tall thick timbers driven into the ground peaked from the corners of the shifted illusion, merging into an equally sound gate. Each trunk that made up the gate was the circumference of three men standing arm to arm. The timbers moaned, pulled from the other side as they shifted and opened slowly. As they parted, Keena saw the first glances of the village behind the walls. She was finally home.

***

Keena pulled at a particularly stubborn flower. Its stem wouldn’t snap. She wished she’d brought a knife. It would make the task she’d set for herself that much easier. She was gathering flowers for Ren. She knew it would brighten the Kitsune’s room, bring some color into it. Keena hoped it would remind Ren that there were still some things worth fighting for. Flowers had always signaled freedom to them, ever since they were children. The freedom of rolling down the hill as the tall grass blew all around them. It was what they wanted for themselves. For their children. It was why they had committed themselves to training. What Ren’s parents had died for.

Keena stayed her hand at the thought, the agony at the truth of it almost too much to bear. 

All parents were fighting for their children. 

Perhaps flowers were a silly idea. What if they only deepened Ren’s grief?

The grass blew around Keena in a musical symphony; the plants whispering secrets only an Earth fairy could understand. As Keena was a Light fairy, there was no answer to be gotten there. Still, the sound of life all around her helped focus her. She combed her fingers through the grass, pulling peace from the awen that flowed through the soil beneath. 

She let the thoughts she’d been avoiding crowd her mind. How would she have handled it if it had been her parents? Allowing herself to recognize what she’d been avoiding ever since she spotted Bly: the knowledge that it could have been her parents. Guilt hammered her again, the words in her mind like blows. 

Not me, not me, not me. 

They had been present during the raid, Keena’s parents. It would have been just as likely that Bly had been riding to deliver the news of her loss. The thought made pain lance through her. With each breath, she could feel the violence of Morrigan pushing closer to her tiny village, pressing down on them all until there was no air left. 

Frustration chorded through her limbs like ropes of metal, making them stiff and unyielding. In a breath, anger was seething in her chest like a brewing storm. She could feel the leaching of the awen even here, in her place of reprieve. The long poisonous fingers of Morrigan’s influence slowly pulling the magic from the land. 

For one bitter moment, Keena wondered if Danu—the Creator—would be disappointed in Morrigan, seeing how Morrigan was her granddaughter. Not to mention that they had known her for millennia as the Savior of the Sidhe. Before she turned murderer. Would Danu have anger or pity for her granddaughter? Some believed that Danu and the earth were the same. The natives of Abya Yula called Danu ‘the mother’. The word chosen for her by Keena’s people had a similar meaning. 

For all the peoples of Daearen, the realm of Daearen would be impossible without the presence of Danu within it. The grand goddess was the tender of the river source, the stones within it, and the waters themselves. She was the life bringer. And she was dying. Slowly and painfully, her essence was being leached away. And no prayers or rituals offered by her people could stop it. By draining the awen, Morrigan wasn’t merely attacking the peoples of Daearen—she was wounding her own grandmother in the process. Some thought fatally. That Morrigan would not stop until all was as ashen as her heart.

Keena had never understood why Morrigan would want to kill what she had saved. It remained the greatest mystery of all.

Unable to keep still any longer, Keena collected a large armful of the flowers she had picked for Ren. Tomorrow would be the start of the funeral rite. Mina was a melting pot of magical races. Each had their way of mourning their dead. Years ago, the governing council had combined these traditions, allowing all of their people to pay homage to their comrades and friends.

Keena was already exhausted at the thought. It would be days of tribes dancing, people bringing trinkets and gifts to accompany the dead on their journey into their next life. In her culture, they mourned and celebrated life and death equally, believing when a child was born, it was because of the death of someone in a world outside of theirs. And likewise, when someone died in their realm, their soul would pass on to another realm to be born anew. She closed her eyes, praying that wherever Ren’s parents found themselves next, it would be a place where there would be no more fighting. That they would find peace.

She crested over a tall hill and paused, looking out at the patchwork of homes scattered before her. Cabins peppered the small valley. Shabby lean-tos housing the ever influx of refugees mixed with the wood cabins with their bleached wood walls and simple thatched roofs and the traditional wooden homes of Abya Yula. It was quaint and completely at home amongst the backdrop of mountains and thick forest.

She looked over to where her house sat nestled among the rest, unsurprised that it was as dark and quiet as she had left it, with no smoke happily curling from its chimney. Her parents wouldn’t be back yet. They were part of the raiding party, which meant they would bring those fallen in the raid back home with them. It would slow their progress as they formed a grieving procession. Her older sister was still on the road, part of the freshly graduated soldiers in charge of getting the youngest from the gate between realms and to Mina. 

The vacant air of her home settled over her heavily, making her hair prickle with uneasiness. The last few days back had reminded her of death’s permanency, the quiet like a vacuum.

She headed down the gentle slope, bringing her onto the road leading into the main square and further to Ren’s house. For the time being they were staying at Ren’s, but Maeve opened the door with red eyes, letting Keena know Ren was refusing to see anyone. 

“Here,” Keena said, handing over the bouquet. “It’s from our spot. Let her know I’ll come back every day until she sees me. She’ll be okay, Maeve.”

Maeve nodded, fresh tears in her eyes. 

“Thanks, Keena,” Maeve said. “And thank you for these,” she added.

Keena turned from the door as Maeve closed it, her hands clenching, but no matter how she tried to stave it off, this time the anger exploded through her in a way that was impossible to contain. The fury at the unfairness swirling and biting at her. 

A pain started at the base of her skull, reminding her of why she’d been drawn to healing in the first place. If she could heal others, maybe she could heal the broken pieces inside of herself that made the anger so overwhelming. But she’d never found the peace she sought in the plants. Not really. People were dying, and no amount of healing magic or plants would bring them back. There was no poultice that Keena could apply to broken hearts that would soothe their pain. 

Keena’s Amazonian mentor Polly’s voice chimed in her mind, saying, Come on, girl, you know where to turn that anger. 

Back in Themiskyra, noting Keena’s clenched fists and the pained expression she always wore when the headaches got really bad, Polly had quickly formed the habit of directing the storm inside her young apprentice towards her training. If Polly had been there now, she would’ve thrown Keena in an enchanted practice ring and let her beat something until she was too tired to move. The outlet for the rage and the release of energy it offered always eased the headaches, bringing back control. 

Keena knew where she needed to go, even though she shouldn’t go there alone.

Typically, a prospect would train with a mentor or with a fellow prospect, but she didn’t have the patience to go looking for Adriel. The electricity building at the base of her spine was making her head feel like it was going to split open. Murmurs of words she couldn’t quite understand. Fragments of sentences in a voice that wasn’t hers growled in the darkness of her rage. It was like an invading body. Like she was sharing someone else’s rage with her own.

The practice rings lay to the east of the council building. Three circles of packed dirt kept the user within a specific perimeter. Should they venture outside it, whatever course they were currently taking would stop until they reoriented themselves. They had chosen the location for the practice rings for its position right within a steady stream of awen from the river source. Keena could sense it all around her as she walked into the ring, a promise that it was there should she have need of it.

It took only a moment of standing at the center of the largest circle for a roughly put together timber fence to flicker into view, a rack of weapons at the opposite end of the packed dirt floor under her feet. Hay covered it, and soon the scent was in her nostrils. She wasn’t familiar with this training course. Judging by the weapons on display, it was for seasoned soldiers only. If her parents or sister were around, they wouldn’t even allow her to consider it. 

Her hands tightened as pain laced through her skull again. It was a risk she was willing to take. She couldn’t sit with this pressure, this rage. Fear of what could happen if she allowed her light to take her over completely nagged at the back of her mind like a pecking bird. The last time she had nearly hurt Polly, and her fingers had been burned for a week from the charge of lightning that had coursed through her veins.

So, she left the awen alone, rather than connect with it. It would enhance her ability to defeat whatever threat she was about to face, but it would also enhance her connection with her light. Make it that much more difficult to subdue. Even though she was alone, she didn’t want to risk hurting herself. All she wanted was the outlet, and she could have that without the awen’s magical currents running through her veins.

However, she didn’t shy away from the pain at the base of her skull. She embraced it. 

With brisk steps, she crossed the practice ring to the stocked weapons rack; she chose the bo staff with a snap of her arm. She turned the stick a few times, testing its weight, sticking one end into the earth, the wood vibrating as it hit the ground, the energy traveling back into her hand. A wicked smile crept over her face as her body moved. The awen might not be coursing through her body, but its presence in this place still meant she had a tool to use. Especially once the pain ebbed.

And it was ebbing. 

She slammed a foot on the first pressure plate, activating the enchanted opponents to spring from the earth. Enid had spelled the course to make the enemy look exactly like the sluagh soldiers that made up most of Morrigan’s army. Souls, trapped and damned by the gods, caught between passing worlds, appearing as rotting corpses with flesh hanging off bones and vacant eyes that saw nothing. The sheer numbers Morrigan had sent as her first wave of attack had covered the land  like a dark shadow. 

A stickler for details, aren’t you, Enid? Keena mused. You even got Morrigan’s sigil down to the crow in the center of the sun.

The corpse started forward, and Keena grinned. This was a level one ring, the most complex course, and her body hummed in anticipation. She would get the chance to flex her muscles. Themiskyra’s practice rings maxed out at level three. With her mentor’s relentless training, Keena had beaten that course a year ago. Keena dodged artfully. Surprised when the sluagh shifted with her, swinging its wooden sword down on her. She cursed and blocked it; the sword grazing her cheek. 

Keena pivoted her body. The sudden loss of opposing pressure made the sluagh fall forward. She took her staff and smacked it across her opponent’s back, sending it forward to land face first in the dirt. When it looked back at her over its shoulder, the heat from her rage crawled through her limbs at the lifeless expression of her opponent. 

How many had died with this abomination as the last thing they ever saw?

Ren’s dad sat across a makeshift table he’d fashioned out of a stump. Sheets of wood laid overtop were at such odds with the delicate miniature tea set atop the table. Hand-painted flowers adorned the bright white porcelain teapot, matching flowers gilding the tiny teacups. Truthfully, the large blonde-haired male was as equally out of place, a tiny teacup nestled in his large hand.

“Terribly sorry,” he said with a soft inflection. “Me hair was all over the shop and cunna do a thing with it,” Finn said, shifting the flower crown on his head.

Keena’s dad, his tone equally prim, a too-small hat sitting on his black curls, ribbons circling his chin to keep it in place. “Mr. Nettlesworth.” He lifted his teacup in salute to Finn, taking a delicate sip.

Both girls smiled broadly at their fathers, Ren’s father reaching for a biscuit and looking quizzically between the biscuit and the teacup, analyzing how to dip it in his cup, glowering when Keena’s father picked up a biscuit, snapped a piece off and dipped it in his cup unceremoniously.

Finn, feigning a gasp, placed a hand over his chest. “Bad manners, Mr. Rufflebottom.”

Keena and Ren’s eyes shone with adoration at the two men. 

The memory of Finn with his golden hair shining in the sun and his amber eyes twinkling with humor made Keena give a scream of objection at his absence. Fury reached inside of her chest, taking hold of her heart, and squeezing so tightly she thought it might stop beating. The rage coursed through her blood, making her skin burn like coals resting right beneath her. 

She needed to make it dissipate. 

She rounded her staff on the sluagh and slammed it into her opponent’s face. As Enid had spelled each opponent to expire at a fatal blow, the sluagh erupted into a cascade of glittering dust. 

Witnessing it, knowing that she was the cause, brought a sense of calm. Like a drug working on her overheated bloodstream, as addictive as the fury itself. She would drive the anger out and let the calm take over. Just how Polly had taught her.

As the dust settled, Keena turned to see three more opponents rising from the surrounding ground. 

She ran at a fence post, slammed a foot against it, vaulting herself into the air. The sluagh nearest her reached and grabbed her shoulder with its skeletal hands. Its grip was like steel as it clutched her shirt and pulled her to the ground, slamming her into the dirt.

The impact of her fall expelled the oxygen from her lungs, making her gasp to recover it. She forced herself to stay present and breathe. She saw a sword swing down towards her, and she shifted to her stomach just in time, making the tip of the sword collide with the earth a fraction of an inch from her face. 

Keena braced herself, kicking at the nearest soldier, knocking it back when her foot collided with its chest, cracking a rib. Her foot pushing into its abdomen and bone-crunching behind the force of her foot made a smile creep over her lips. 

Enid, did it really need to be so… specific?

Unfortunately, it now meant that Keena’s foot was caught in her opponent’s chest and it wouldn’t come free, even as she shook her leg. Luckily, the sluagh stepping backward to get away from her meant it pulled to her free foot so she could brace herself and swing her leg again, knocking the one stuck on her foot into another attacker. 

The second sluagh reached out in surprise, grabbing its comrade. Keena smiled again. 

Good boy, she thought as she used the chance to pull her foot free. She slammed her staff under the first sluagh’s ribcage and into the next. 

Both exploded in another violent burst of glittering dust. 

She rounded on the remaining opponent, seeing six more rise from around the ring. Her heart sank. She was in trouble. Especially since she realized too late that a further three had emerged from the ground right behind her, leaving herself wide open for the pell sword that was slammed into her back.

She cried out; the air knocked from her lungs. 

Before she could react to protect herself, another hit followed. 

Again and again and again, the pell sword smashed into her body. 

She could see the six she’d been staring down also descending on her when another blow landed across her cheek, her eyes blurring. Panic slammed through her veins at the realness of her situation. She could feel her breath shortening, her vision growing dim as the panic took her over. As more and more blows landed over her body, she had to admit that she only had two options: to forfeit or use her light to defeat the sluagh. 

She should give up.

But the anger still licked through her, those menacing faces of her attackers leering, and the hatred was absolute.

She didn’t care if her light would claim her this time. Her power had been a mystery to her ever since it manifested. It was associated with uncertainty and secrecy, and she was so tired of it. No one knew her. She sometimes felt like she didn’t even know herself. 

She closed her eyes and reached out to the surrounding awen.

She let it wrap itself around her, the energy coursing through the earth, pulsing at her feet. For the first few moments, she knew it would enhance the pain, making it white-hot as it fired through her brain. But she also knew this meant that the exchange of awen had begun and she was connecting fully with the river source. Her body drinking it in like cold, fresh water, closing the loop of energy. 

To use the awen, whether to create or destroy, the wielder had to channel it. To do that, the wielder had to pull it in through their feet like the roots of a plant extracting nourishment from the soil and draw it through the body, connect it with their soul—their life force, the stabilizing element of the magic—and then extend it outward.  

Another blow, this time splitting Keena’s lip open. The taste of blood on her tongue made her open her eyes, and she watched as though she were a passenger in her body as her wrist flicked, light unraveling from her fingertips. It reached out to the three opponents surrounding her and grabbed them, energy shooting up their legs, freezing them in place. 

A moment as she stared at them.

She knew what was about to happen. Keena feel it vibrate itself through her because it was what she wanted to happen. Some part of her was commanding her light to make it so.

Another moment and they fell in a pile of dust around her. 

Her vision was clear, the world around her sharpened as though her inner light was revealing its most basic components to her. 

She pushed to her feet, looking at the six who were now only a few feet away.

She was dizzy and unsteady on her feet. Again, her body reacted, a snap of her wrist, light uncurling from her hand like a whip. She repeated the motion, and the bolt came to life, curling up and coiling around the throat of the nearest sluagh. Her opponent dropped his sword and lifted its hands to its throat in panic. It didn’t take much at all to make it cascade into glittering dust at her feet. 

As her rage grew, the terror she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge built inside her. It was too late now. There were no protests, no fear, no remorse that could hand her back control. She was a passenger to the part of her that seemed to crave this violence.

The light came to life again in her hand, swirling on the ground like a cat’s tail. Keena lifted it and brought it down on the approaching sluaghs with a howl. She caught all but one, tightening until they too exploded into nothing. 

The remaining soldier dodged and rushed at her. Adrenaline shot through Keena, making her blood run thick and hot as the sluagh screeched at her. She lifted her other hand; the light curling out of her fingers and extending to wrap around the corpse’s throat. It ducked and rolled out of the way, snapping to its feet, continuing its rush at her. She braced herself, ready to swing her staff and knock the sluagh back, surprised when something collided with the back of her head, knocking her to her knees. More sluaghs had appeared behind her. They were reaching their bony fingers for her, grasping at her, pinning her down.

She shook her head, fire shooting through her body. The burning in the base of her skull suddenly unleashed itself and took her over. The fire in her veins returning with a vengeance, the calm going up in smoke. 

A growl filled her throat as she roared and turned to see a new opponent bringing its pell sword back down again. 

She didn’t wait. Digging her fingers into the ground, she unleashed the ripping electricity in her body, letting it travel down her limbs, pooling it into the earth. Her body felt as though it was getting torn apart, her muscles and tendons threatening to be yanked from her bones. It made her tilt her head back in a scream.

Lightning wrapped around the sluaghs’ legs and crawled up their bodies. The corpses twitched and seized; the lightning growing as it surged over the dirt, shooting up through the crowns of the sluagh’s heads.  

As the pain once more took her over, the darkness edged its way inside. She wanted to be rid of it once and for all. If it killed her, so be it. 

It will not kill you.

The conviction was sweet, even as she felt she was becoming nothing more than awen. She stuck her other hand into the dirt, sending a swell over the ground, activating the other pressure plates, forcing the remaining enchanted sluagh corpses out from the ground. 

A vicious smile crept over her lips, a white film placing itself over her line of sight, and yet it was only a filter. It made her realize that her sight was present, and she could see into every last sluagh. Not just those before her, but those in Morrigan’s battle fields. Those that had come before and those that remained. They were all empty. There should be no guilt. They had none, nor did they have the capacity to show mercy.  

She sent another pulse over the earth, capturing the others trying to rush forward. Keena watched with dark delight as they stopped cold, caught in a surge of electricity. Their limbs jerking and twitching as the energy fried them from the inside out. 

She was draining. She could feel it, and yet she could not stop herself.

She wanted to kill them all.

More erupted from the ground and rushed her. This time, she could not fight them off when they overtook her. One brought the butt of a sword down on her cheek.

Then there was only quiet before the darkened form of a tall man leaned over her, his braided black hair blowing in the wind and his fuming ice-blue eyes coming closer as he bent to pick her up from the ground.

A deep male growl rumbled close to her ear. “Idiot.”

Keena had nothing to counter with, and safe in his arms she let unconsciousness claim her.